November 2014

Ode to Laziness

when watching the smoke curl through the beam of sunlight
appeals more than pedaling your cycle to the market
and the quiet lapping tide
compels like laying brick does not
it is good to sit and feel yourself

as the record spins out, and our bodies are splayed
still sweating on the sheets
and outside the machinery is crushing
and the horns are honking
and the heroic mendacity of war
stumbles in march-step forward,
it is good to lie and feel ourselves

as our unquiet city goes to bed, alighted,
and the working girls and boys begin to punch their clocks,
still others slumber
palm-down on the table with a head heavy and low
crumpled bills the only proof of currency
in need of touch
but lustful, hoping, for a show